Racing Pigeons

First off, you need a pigeon of course! The best place is to look for pigeons that are for sale, then go ahead and buy one (or some) from a certified pigeon breeder, to buy young birds.

If you want to buy winning pigeons already, that may a great start as well. make sure you find out how old the bird is first, before the purchase is made.You should also verify that the owner has won races before you buy it.

Also, you may hear something that is known as “eye sign” but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the pigeon is a good racer, so don’t base everything on that item alone.

Probably the best way to learn about the sport is pick up a pigeon racing guide.

Your most valuable birds are ones which are good breeders. These birds should not be used for racing. Although they may be winners you could lose them and and also your future winners.

Good record keeping is key to early recognition of which the good breeding birds are. It is time consuming but will enable you to make the right decisions as to which birds to race.

Check your records often to make analyses of your birds. Keep records of all the progeny from a pair. Once you have found a good pair of breeding birds which have produced several winners build your own family around them.

There are a numner of systems available which can be used in breeding. These include cross breeding, line breeding and in-breeding.

Records of the pedigrees are important when buying birds and should show that winners were produced and that impossible gene patterns did not occur which would suggest mistaken or false records or possibly matings have occured with other birds.

It is easiest to cross breed birds whilst in breeding needs more care. Cross breeding is the mating of birds which have no relationship with the other for 5 generations or more.

Line breeding is said to occur when a pair are mated from different generations of the same line.

In breeding is used to concentrate desirable genes in a family. This system uses matings between closely related birds ie. father to daughter, mother to son, brother to sister. For inbreeding you need very good stock.The concentration of genes can also strengthen poor qualities if they exist as well as the good traits.

When inbreeding the sytematic culling of weaker birds is used to remove poorer gene characteristics and strenghthen the line, again the keeping of good records is important to identify weaker birds which lack speed or may have a less reliable homing instinct.

The strategy of inbreeding is to remove weaker variables from the line so the temptation to outcross should be resisted as this may introduce some unpredicatable elements.

So you want to know what’s the racing pigeons sport about? Let’s try a really short description to help you understand the basics. If you want to join our crazy game, there are many learning resources available.

The RACING PIGEONS SPORT in a few words:
1. You must have a team of birds (10 to 50 or more). You train the birds, offer them a good loft and good food.

2. The races are usually during the weekends. All the fanciers from an area join a pigeon club, and before the race, all the teams of birds are entered in the transporting car of the club.

3. The car transports the pigeons to the releasing location (from 100 to 1000+ kilometers away) and sets them free in the morning.

4. The pigeons will always fly home as fast as they can (they don’t know they race, but their instinct always makes them fly back to the place where they were born and where their nest is, no matter where you set them free). Depending on the quality of the birds and the knowledge of the fancier that manages them, the initial flock of hundreds or thousands of birds liberated will split in smaller flocks, the fastest, strongest and smartest of the birds being ahead the others. Depending on the distance, the race can last several hours (there are short distance, middle distance and long distance races). The marathon races usually take two days.

5. When a pigeon gets home, an electronic clocking device will register it and when the race is over, the race sheet is calculated based on the velocity of each bird. The prizes you can win depend on the country or area, they can be cars, money, … or just fame and soul satisfaction.

6. This is more fun than Counter Strike, FIFA Manager or any other computer game. You are the manager of a team in REAL LIFE, and the team is made of tiny birds that are powerful, intelligent and fast. Join the fun!

See what it is all about, in the movies below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WFseXvzkcts

A final note for the pigeon fanciers: after visiting hundreds of websites dedicated to the racing pigeons sport, I discovered that 99% of them do not have an area that promote the hobby, explaining people outside the hobby what this is all about and how fascinating it can be. So, this website won’t focus on pedigrees, pigeon auctions and race results. Instead, it will try to show the pure beauty and adrenaline from this hobby.

I was watching a program about tropical fish one day and in the water were two groups of fish. These fish were the same colour but with different pattern ie a striped shoal and a spotted shoal .What I found interesting about all of this was when the Diver took a striped fish and introduced it to the spotted shoal at about a meter apart so what happened? the little fella went straight back to his stripy buddies .Now what would happen if you were to rear a small team of racing pigeons the same colour you might ask why!! my racing  pigeons do alright for me and they are mixed ,or maybe you have already tried this method with no results if this was so how would your returns have been. We let our racing  pigeons out to fly on a daily basis and what do they do they fly around and around for at least two hours repeating the same circular flying pattern day in and day out looking at the same colour of buddies flying below them now if these birds are reared only knowing what they are shown surely this should increase our chances of a bird wanting back to his own kind .Imagine the birds being released from the transporter and what is the first thing they see?  That`s  right lots of different coloured buddies is this going to increase your chances of getting a better percentage of returns? What about even when you train your one coloured team  and they accidentally have a smash with another team, could this help to increase your chances of getting better returns than the other guys & gals? Combining this method with your own favourite motivation tactic could have that extra bit of edge on the rest of the fancy or could it?

Method or Madness.

LIST OF DISEASES

Racing pigeons are housed together in a specially designed dovecote or loft. From about five weeks of age until the end of its racing career, the racing loft is the pigeon’s home and this is where it returns to on race day.

Selective breeding and rigorous training has led to birds such as this Australian winner.

Young pigeons are usually trained progressively for at least six months before being allowed to compete in a race event. A racing pigeon’s initial training involves familiarising it with the loft and its surroundings and training it to use the various features of its home (e.g. entry points). It is also this critical time that the birds learn commands, such as entering the loft when the trainer whistles.

After a few weeks of initial training and ‘homing in’, the young birds are allowed outside for the first time. This is usually before they can fly strongly so as to prevent an overzealous pigeon from flying away before it can find its way back home. As the birds grow older, they become stronger and smarter and are therefore allowed to fly further and further away from their home loft. When a few trainers fly their pigeons in the same area, these loft flying kits (as flocks of pigeons are called) can number in the thousands. This ‘loft flying’ familiarises the birds with their home area and builds fitness. It does not, however, help them much in relation to finding their home from long distances away, a fundamental of pigeon racing. As confident flyers, the young pigeons are taken on progressively longer ‘training tosses’, driven a distance away from their home and released. This is like the format of a real race, however on a much smaller scale and it is usually not timed in the same way as a race. This practice of loft flying and tossing continues throughout a pigeon’s career.
Training methods are as varied as the pigeons themselves. Some fanciers believe their system is the secret to their success and guard these hard learned lessons closely. Most fanciers will explain their basic strategy but some may be reluctant to share the details of their success. One of the most popular systems is widowhood. This system uses motivation to try to give the bird a sense of urgency on race day. The use of widowhood is usually begun by first allowing the racer to raise a baby in their nest box. After the baby is weaned the hen is removed and often the nestbox is closed off, from then on the only time these birds are allowed to see their mate or enter the nest box is upon returning from training or a race. This conditioning is one of the key elements in a lot of racing programs.

One-Loft Racing is the process of training birds bred by many different breeders in the same loft, under the same trainer and in the same conditions (as opposed to trainer against trainer in their own lofts and usually with their own birds). It is thought to be the fairest method of proving which bloodline or breeder is best and usually provides the highest amount of prize money. Pigeons are recorded by electronic timing systems scanning the birds as they enter the home loft with winners decided by as little as 100th of a second. The birds are all taken to the same release point and they return to the same home loft, so therefore it is the fastest bird to complete the journey from A to B. One loft racing is now becoming very popular all around the world with fanciers able to compare their bloodlines on an equal basis against the many other pigeons.

The latest development and preferred method for timing racing pigeons is the Electronic Timing System. The bird’s arrival is recorded automatically. When using an electronic system, the pigeon fancier doesn’t even have to be at the loft to clock the birds as they return. Birds are fitted with a band that has a tiny RFID chip in it which can be read when the bird comes home. At the home loft the electronic scanning records the pigeons arrival. The pad or antenna is placed at the entry point to the loft entrance and as the pigeon crosses it the electronic band is scanned. The clock is attached to the antennas. The serial number of the transponder ring is recorded along with the time of arrival. This is very similar to transponder timing systems used in human races.

In February 2008 the members of the Penygraog Homing Society Racing Pigeon Club in Wales won an award to fund a new electronic timing device. The club was able to obtain the device thanks to funding from the All Wales award initiative. Club secretary John Williams said: “The electronic timer certainly makes it a lot easier for us”.

The traditional method of timing racing pigeons involves rubber rings with unique serial numbers and a specially designed pigeon racing clock. The ring is attached around the bird’s leg before being sent to race. The serial number is recorded, the clock is set and sealed, and the bird carries the ring home. When the first bird returns, its trainer removes the ring and places it in a slot in the clock. The time that the ring was placed in the clock and is recorded as the official time that the competing bird arrived home. From this timestamp an average speed is measured and a winner of the race can be found.

Although serving its purpose, this method has proved somewhat problematic for a few reasons:

1. The pigeon’s “official time” is not the actual time it arrived, it is the time the ring was removed, placed in the clock and recorded, which could be many vital seconds later.
2. Exceptional pigeons may arrive home first on multiple occasions; knowing it is going to have the ring removed speedily, which may be uncomfortable, the pigeon could be reluctant to enter the loft for the trainer.

In short, competing birds are taken from their lofts and must race home. The time taken and distance are recorded and the fastest bird is declared the winner. Races are generally between 100 and 1000 km in distance. In the United States flights of up to 1800 kilometres have been recorded.

Provided it survives the many hazards associated with racing, a single pigeon could compete from about 6 months of age and still be in competition at over ten years of age. Such feats are uncommon, however, and the average racing career rarely exceeds three years.

To compete in a race, it must wear a permanent, unique numbered ring or band that is placed on its leg at about 5 days of age. For a race to be conducted, the competing pigeons must be entered into the race, usually at the organisation’s clubhouse, and taken away from their home to be released at a predetermined time and location. The distance between the bird’s home loft and the racepoint is carefully measured by GPS and the time taken by the bird to return is measured using one of the two acceptable timing methods. Sometimes as in some leagues there are 2 divisions. One for the young birds (usually yearlings in their first year of competition) and another for the old birds.

Pigeons have been domesticated for thousands of years. The predecessors of modern day Racing pigeons were pigeons bred for their homing ability, primarily to carry messages. “Pigeon Posts” have been established all over the world and while mainly used in the military, some are still in service today. Modern pigeon racing originated in Belgium in the mid 19th century.

Pigeon racing is a sport involving the release of specially trained racing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the animal to cover the specified distance is measured and the animals’ rate of travel is calculated and compared with all of the other pigeons in the race to determine which animal returned at the highest speed.

The winner of a pigeon race is the bird with the highest velocity, that is, the distance flown divided by the time taken. Races can often be won and lost in seconds, and to counter this, many different timing apparatus have been developed. The traditional timing method involves rubber rings being placed into a specially designed clock, whereas a newer development uses RFID tags to record arrival time.

While there is not definite proof, there are compelling reasons to think the sport of racing pigeons may go back as least as far as 220 AD or possibly earlier. The sport achieved a great deal of popularity in Belgium in the mid 19th century. The pigeon fanciers of Belgium were so taken with the hobby that they began to develop pigeons specially cultivated for fast flight and long endurance called Voyageurs. From Belgium the modern version of the sport and the Voyageurs which the Flemish fanciers developed spread to most parts of the world. Once quite popular, the sport has experienced a downturn in participants in recent years, possibly due to the rising cost of living, aging fanciers, and a severe lack of public interest.

One recent development in the sport of pigeon racing is “one loft racing”, where birds are raced against each other under the same training regime, in an effort to test the best birds rather than the best trainer.